Wuthering Heights(57)
‘She’s fainted, or dead,’ I thought: ‘so much the better.
Far better that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to all about her.’
Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and rage. What he meant to do I cannot tell; however, the other stopped all demonstrations, at once, by placing the lifelesslooking form in his arms.
‘Look there!’ he said. ‘Unless you be a fiend, help her first then you shall speak to me!’
He walked into the parlour, and sat down. Mr. Linton summoned me, and with great difficulty, and after resort-ing to many means, we managed to restore her to sensation; but she was all bewildered; she sighed, and moaned, and knew nobody. Edgar, in his anxiety for her, forgot her hated friend. I did not. I went, at the earliest opportunity, and be-sought him to depart; affirming that Catherine was better, and he should hear from me in the morning how she passed the night.
‘I shall not refuse to go out of doors,’ he answered; ‘but I shall stay in the garden: and, Nelly, mind you keep your word to-morrow. I shall be under those larch-trees. Mind!
or I pay another visit, whether Linton be in or not.’
He sent a rapid glance through the half-open door of the chamber, and, ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true, delivered the house of his luckless presence.
208
Wuthering Heights
Chapter XVI
ABOUT twelve o’clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at Wuthering Heights: a puny, seven-months’
child; and two hours after the mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss Heathcliff, or know Edgar. The latter’s distraction at his bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt on; its after-effects showed how deep the sorrow sunk. A great addition, in my eyes, was his being left without an heir. I bemoaned that, as I gazed on the feeble orphan; and I mentally abused old Linton for (what was only natural partiality) the securing his estate to his own daughter, instead of his son’s. An unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing! It might have wailed out of life, and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of existence.
We redeemed the neglect afterwards; but its beginning was as friendless as its end is likely to be.
Next morning bright and cheerful out of doors stole softened in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut.
His young and fair features were almost as deathlike as those of the form beside him, and almost as fixed: but HIS
was the hush of exhausted anguish, and HERS of perfect peace. Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips wearing the expression of a smile; no angel in heaven could be more Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 209
beautiful than she appeared. And I partook of the infinite calm in which she lay: my mind was never in a holier frame than while I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine rest.
I instinctively echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before: ‘Incomparably beyond and above us all! Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her spirit is at home with God!’
I don’t know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter the Eternity they have entered where life is bound-less in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness. I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton’s, when he so regret-ted Catherine’s blessed release! To be sure, one might have doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led, whether she merited a haven of peace at last. One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection; but not then, in the presence of her corpse. It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant.
Do you believe such people are happy in the other world, sir? I’d give a great deal to know.
I declined answering Mrs. Dean’s question, which struck me as something heterodox. She proceeded: Retracing the course of Catherine Linton, I fear we have no right to think she is; but we’ll leave her with her Maker.
The master looked asleep, and I ventured soon after sun-210
Wuthering Heights
rise to quit the room and steal out to the pure refreshing air. The servants thought me gone to shake off the drows-iness of my protracted watch; in reality, my chief motive was seeing Mr. Heathcliff. If he had remained among the larches all night, he would have heard nothing of the stir at the Grange; unless, perhaps, he might catch the gallop of the messenger going to Gimmerton. If he had come nearer, he would probably be aware, from the lights flitting to and fro, and the opening and shutting of the outer doors, that all was not right within. I wished, yet feared, to find him.
I felt the terrible news must be told, and I longed to get it over; but how to do it I did not know. He was there at least, a few yards further in the park; leant against an old ash-tree, his hat off, and his hair soaked with the dew that had gathered on the budded branches, and fell pattering round him. He had been standing a long time in that position, for I saw a pair of ousels passing and repassing scarcely three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his proximity no more than that of a piece of timber. They flew off at my approach, and he raised his eyes and spoke:‘She’s dead!’ he said; ‘I’ve not waited for you to learn that. Put your handkerchief away don’t snivel before me. Damn you all!